All posts tagged Visas

What was once the only skyscraper in Rockford, Ill., is getting an overhaul under an urban-renewal program that is bringing together Warren Buffett and Chinese investors looking for a U.S. visa. Read More »

The U.S. and China agreed to issue longer-term visas for business, tourism and education, potentially removing a long-standing impediment to exchanges between the world’s largest economies. Read More »

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, stopping in China as part of a six-day tour of Asia, used the backdrop of a line of Chinese visa seekers to spin his idea of the American Dream.

Mr. Biden, who dropped by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing early Wednesday afternoon immediately after his arrival, addressed the characteristically long line of Chinese snaking their way into the embassy’s busy three-story visa section by recalling a conversation with former Singaporean leader Lee Kwan Yew. Read More »

Three days after a New York Times correspondent and his family were forced to leave the mainland after he wasn’t issued a new visa by year’s end, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has responded to say his application is still under consideration.

Chris Buckley, 45 years old, is a longtime foreign correspondent in the mainland. Previously a reporter with Reuters news agency covering Chinese domestic politics and other topics, Mr. Buckley joined the New York Times in September. Authorities have yet to grant him a 2013 visa to report for the Times from Beijing, and he was forced to leave the mainland on Monday as his old Reuters visa prepared to expire. Read More »

Good news for travelers who have always wanted to see the Chinese capital, just not badly enough to go through all the trouble of getting a visa: Starting New Year’s Day, foreigners will be allowed to stay in Beijing without a visa for 72 hours.

The new rule, hinted at back in May, is aimed at making tourism a “strategic pillar of the economy,” the state-run China Daily said, citing the Beijing Tourism Administration. Read More »

In another sign of how Beijing is trying to diffuse anti-mainland resentment in Hong Kong, a plan to spur mainland tourism in the southern Chinese territory has been officially shelved.

Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying said Friday that the plan—which would have made it easier for four million more residents of nearby Shenzhen to get multiple-entry tourist visas to Hong Kong—has now been postponed indefinitely by Chinese authorities. Locals have long complained that the deluge of mainland tourists, over 28 million of whom arrived in the city last year to shop for luxury goods and sightsee, has overwhelmed Hong Kong and sent the price of everything from toothpaste to property spiking. Read More »

Despite all the talk of class warfare and punishing success, the U.S. remains a highly desirable place for the world’s rich. Especially for the rich Chinese. According to data from the U.S. Immigration Service, thousands of wealthy Chinese have applied for the EB-5 Visa, also known as the “green-card-for-money” program.

The investors and their families can get citizenship after five years if they fulfill the requirements. Lots of rich people around the world apply. But the Chinese have become far and away the biggest users and beneficiaries.

Good news for Chinese students and scientists hoping to go to the U.S.: They will soon be able to benefit from a major reduction in the waiting period for U.S. visas, today’s WSJ reports.

The State Department aims to cut the screening process for “F” visa applications issued to science students and scholars down to two weeks. Currently, applications can drag on for months, and Congress has warned that this is a problem that may hamper the U.S.’s ability to benefit from the special knowledge of foreign scholars.

Foreign science students and scholars have long been required to obtain security clearance through a multistep screening program known as “Visa Mantis,” which looks for national security threats posed by applicants who may gain access to sensitive military technology and attempt to transfer the information to other countries or to terrorist groups. Last year, around 56,000 science students and scholars from around the world were subject to such screening. Chinese applicants have historically accounted for more than half of those screened. Read More »

Expert Insight

New rules on labor negotiations in southern China offer a potential solution to the country's growing problem with labor unrest while at the same time illustrating the difficulty the Communist Party faces in effectively addressing workers’ grievances.

For much of the last half-century, changing China through economic reform seemed to make far better sense than transforming the country through political revolution. Xi Jinping is trying to flip that on its head.

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